Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but something just feels tonally wrong about “Oz the Great and Powerful,” and it’s not just because the evil witches only become fully bad when they’re stripped of their good looks. Because the biggest problem for a woman is, God forbid, she become unattractive or unwanted by a man. (Please apply the necessary amount of sarcasm to that preceding sentence.) Also frustrating is the bizarre message of the film, which suggests that believing in something—even if it’s a lie—can be impactful and productive. The protagonist, Oscar, whose magician stage name is Oz (James Franco, of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” “Your Highness,” “The Green Hornet,” “127 Hours,” and “Date Night”) is “weak, selfish, slightly egotistical, and a fibber,” but he becomes a hero using those untruths … and never seems to think duping people is a bad thing.
We’re supposed to get a hero’s journey with Oscar, but something about Franco’s performance keeps him from transcending smarmy and sneaky to inspired and inspirational. He just seems like a bad dude sticking around for a bunch of gold and a pretty witch. And that pales in comparison with the original “The Wizard of Oz,” which more resonantly demonstrated how people can change for the better. The transformations in “Oz the Great and Powerful” are rushed, simplistic, and surprisingly unsympathetic—even though the film clocks in at longer than two hours and should have more than enough time to make audiences care.
“Oz the Great and Powerful” begins in black-and-white 1905 Kansas, where the struggling magician Oscar is breaking women’s hearts, duping audiences, and unable to help a girl in the audience, who truly believes in his magic, to walk again because he really doesn’t have any power at all. He’s mostly selfish and rude, brushing off the friendship of his assistant Frank (Zach Braff), but is legitimately saddened when he learns sweetheart Annie (Michelle Williams, of “My Week with Marilyn,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” “Shutter Island,” and “Blue Valentine”) has accepted another man’s proposal. So when Oscar gets caught in a hot-air balloon going straight into a twister, he’s running away from his bad reputation and his failed love life—and straight to Oz, a wonderfully colorful, beautiful place, with huge blooming flowers, violent river fairies, and a gorgeous Emerald City.
There are just a few complications, though: Everyone at Oz thinks Oscar is the wizard determined by prophecy to come save them from the evil Wicked Witch, including the beautiful witch Theodora (Mila Kunis, of “Ted,” “Friends with Benefits,” “Black Swan,” and “Date Night”), who is young, naïve, and falls for Oscar’s womanizing ways. She’s dreaming of them ruling Oz together after they share their first kiss, but Oscar is already looking for a way out. But then Theodora takes him to her sister, Evanora (Rachel Weisz, of “The Bourne Legacy,” “Dream House,” “The Whistleblower,” and “The Lovely Bones”), who was the royal advisor to the king before he was (supposedly) murdered by his daughter the Wicked Witch, Glinda (also Williams), and Evanora tells him all about the fortunes that will go to the wizard who defeats the Wicked Witch. So along with his flying monkey assistant Finley (also voiced by Braff), Oscar decides to figure out a way to defeat the Wicked Witch. All that gold is just waiting to be spent, right?
But naturally, Evanora isn’t who she seems; Glinda isn’t as evil as the former would lead you to expect; and Theodora’s broken heart when she realizes Oscar doesn’t want to be with her forever isn’t going to cure itself. And so a series of revelations and events puts Oscar in a sticky spot: His arrival has actually put the people of Oz in greater danger, but does he have it in him to be a good man? Evanora tells Theodora, “Did it not occur to you that he might be an imposter?”, but can Oscar rise above her doubt—and his own?
I might be making things sound very, very melodramatic, but that’s because “Oz the Great and Powerful” doesn’t really deal in in-between spaces. Oscar is really only a jerk. Evanora is really only evil. Glinda is really only good. There are so many absolutes with these characters that it’s obvious where the plot is going, in such a way that their transformations take no time at all. Even though some of these performances are really quite good—Williams is restrained but still quite wise and appealing, and Weisz is deliciously manipulative—there’s simply nothing of depth to work with. Writers Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire (who previously penned “Rise of the Guardians”) shortchange these characters in a major way—making the women care most primarily about their beauty, for example. Evanora wants power, but why? What would she accomplish as leader? Why did the king trust her? How did Glinda get pushed out? There are no reasons given; Oscar is just dropped into a narrative that adapts to his presence but has very little explanation behind it.
Even director Sam Raimi seems to fall in a rut by the second half of the film, when the depiction of Oz become quite repetitive (oh look, more flowers! and more art deco buildings in the Emerald City!) and the use of 3-D less necessary. The technique is interestingly employed in the first part of the film (when birds and fire leap out of the circus, and the twister feels truly dangerous), but by the end it’s just fireballs and bubbles.
Ultimately there’s something about “Oz the Great and Powerful” which feels just like those fireballs and bubbles—fleeting and divergent, about to pop or burn out. There are certainly some pretty things to see here, but as a precursor to the classic “The Wizard of Oz,” it’s lacking significance. The movie wants to be great, but honestly? It’s not even that good.
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